Windows 11 S**ks

[Kamaji]

Just have to bloviate for a second.

I just bought a lightly used 14" that I intend to convert to my new Linux box, but since it came with a valid Win11 license, I thought I would try out Win11 first.

Boy am I glad I never let my real windows system "upgrade" to Win11.

First impression:  a shoddy Mac rip-off UI.  Apparently Windows UI developers have run out of all creativity and are reduced to creating second-rate knock-offs of the Mac UI.

Second impression:  can't wait to put Linux on this machine.  The machine will thank me for it.

[DB]

I bought a brand-new top end workstation laptop about a year ago that only came with windows 11. Never booted it to it... Wiped it and installed Windows 10 Professional.

Windows 11 sucks big time. Serving out ads in the OS is the last straw.

[corbe]

   I'm gonna have to build a new PC this summer and I will keep Win10 on it as long as I can.  Win11 leaves a lot to be desired for. 

[Kamaji]

   I'm gonna have to build a new PC this summer and I will keep Win10 on it as long as I can.  Win11 leaves a lot to be desired for. 

Are there Win-only apps you need to use?  If not, consider going Linux.  I've been using Mint Linux for several years, and while LibreOffice is not quite as good as MS Word (the dedicated app, not the ridiculous browser-based Office 365 version), it works, and best of all, it's free.

[Kamaji]

Just have to bloviate for a second.

I just bought a lightly used 14" that I intend to convert to my new Linux box, but since it came with a valid Win11 license, I thought I would try out Win11 first.

Boy am I glad I never let my real windows system "upgrade" to Win11.

First impression:  a shoddy Mac rip-off UI.  Apparently Windows UI developers have run out of all creativity and are reduced to creating second-rate knock-offs of the Mac UI.

Second impression:  can't wait to put Linux on this machine.  The machine will thank me for it.

I'm not just going to throw the Win11 license away; instead, I'm going to just leave it installed on the current ssd, and just swap the 512GB ssd out (with Win11 on it) for a new 1T ssd on which I will install Linux.  That way, if I ever need to go back to Win11, I can just swap the old ssd back in.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Using it now.    It's ok? Windows has always ripped off Apple.

[roamer_1]

Just have to bloviate for a second.

I just bought a lightly used 14" that I intend to convert to my new Linux box, but since it came with a valid Win11 license, I thought I would try out Win11 first.

Boy am I glad I never let my real windows system "upgrade" to Win11.

First impression:  a shoddy Mac rip-off UI.  Apparently Windows UI developers have run out of all creativity and are reduced to creating second-rate knock-offs of the Mac UI.

Second impression:  can't wait to put Linux on this machine.  The machine will thank me for it.

Yeah. Really not that awful under the hood. Pretty much the same operationally as win10. They mainly changed the grill - Crappy win10 graphics made even worse... and of course, destroying the hated start bar that they have been trying to get rid of since XP.

I am a start freak. In my personal boxen, everything I need is there in the panels. I seldom go digging through the menu. Everything else I do is CLI, so I still have a cmd box open all the time...

In win11 I only operate by CLI. You may as well not have the graphic interface.

And the other 5 star bitch is the security in BIOS. Several things you have to shut off for Linux to work, and turn back on for windows to work. I finally abandoned Win11 and went back to Win10 on dual-boot machines, and all of them are older boxes so that Win10 will run on em.

I currently have *NO* Win11 boxen in my herd.

[Kamaji]

Yeah. Really not that awful under the hood. Pretty much the same operationally as win10. They mainly changed the grill - Crappy win10 graphics made even worse... and of course, destroying the hated start bar that they have been trying to get rid of since XP.

I am a start freak. In my personal boxen, everything I need is there in the panels. I seldom go digging through the menu. Everything else I do is CLI, so I still have a cmd box open all the time...

In win11 I only operate by CLI. You may as well not have the graphic interface.

And the other 5 star bitch is the security in BIOS. Several things you have to shut off for Linux to work, and turn back on for windows to work. I finally abandoned Win11 and went back to Win10 on dual-boot machines, and all of them are older boxes so that Win10 will run on em.

I currently have *NO* Win11 boxen in my herd.

I know that Secure Boot in UEFI can be problematic for Linux.  Are there new trix in UEFI for Win11 that need to be disabled?

[DB]

Yeah. Really not that awful under the hood. Pretty much the same operationally as win10. They mainly changed the grill - Crappy win10 graphics made even worse... and of course, destroying the hated start bar that they have been trying to get rid of since XP.

I am a start freak. In my personal boxen, everything I need is there in the panels. I seldom go digging through the menu. Everything else I do is CLI, so I still have a cmd box open all the time...

In win11 I only operate by CLI. You may as well not have the graphic interface.

And the other 5 star bitch is the security in BIOS. Several things you have to shut off for Linux to work, and turn back on for windows to work. I finally abandoned Win11 and went back to Win10 on dual-boot machines, and all of them are older boxes so that Win10 will run on em.

I currently have *NO* Win11 boxen in my herd.

I very much like True Launch Bar if it is still around. Can organize files/folders/apps very cleanly with minimal clicks to get there.

[corbe]

How to Enable God Mode in Windows 11 or 10

By Avram Piltch published August 31, 2021

Get easy access to dozens of advanced settings.

God mode on Windows 11

The newer and shinier Windows' UI gets, the harder it is to access its most advanced (and often important) settings. Windows 11, like Windows 10 before it, tries to guide you into the new, modern looking Settings menu while burying but not eliminating the old-fashioned Control Panel, which still houses a lot of important options.

Even if you launch the Control Panel, you may have trouble finding the particular setting you're looking for. For example, to change your environment variables (which affect what apps you can launch from any directory via the command line), you need to go to Settings->System->About->Advanced System Settings or Control Panel->System->Advanced System Settings and then click on the Environment Variables button.

The good news is that you can see a complete list of direct shortcuts by turning on "God Mode," or, more accurately, creating a God Mode folder. Sadly, this "God Mode" is not as powerful as the ones you find in video games where you can walk through walls, be invincible or get every weapon. But God Mode in Windows 11 or Windows 10 can get you to your printer or Bluetooth settings in a single click. Here's how.

<..snip..>

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/enable-god-mode-windows-11

[Kamaji]

At least with Linux, if you don’t like the default GUI, you can always swap in another or even try writing your own. 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

At least with Linux, if you don’t like the default GUI, you can always swap in another or even try writing your own.

Actually with Windows you can install programs that change the GUI, I remember experimenting with 3d guis back in the 90's. Not that they were that great.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I very much like True Launch Bar if it is still around. Can organize files/folders/apps very cleanly with minimal clicks to get there.

With Windows you can "pin" an app to the taskbar, makes launching minimal, just need to right click and "pin". I'm sure Linux has the same thing.

[DB]

With Windows you can "pin" an app to the taskbar, makes launching minimal, just need to right click and "pin". I'm sure Linux has the same thing.

True Launch lets you have a single pinned item on the taskbar that when you hover over it has a popup list of apps/files/folders (whatever you've set it up for) that can be further nested. So different task or projects that use a collection of tools can all be in one place. And you can have many of those pinned to the taskbar. An example:

[Kamaji]

Actually with Windows you can install programs that change the GUI, I remember experimenting with 3d guis back in the 90's. Not that they were that great.

True enough, but you cannot simply go with a completely different GUI if you want, the way you can in Linux.

[roamer_1]

I know that Secure Boot in UEFI can be problematic for Linux.  Are there new trix in UEFI for Win11 that need to be disabled?

I don't remember, and any info I might provide would certainly be stale.

IIRC, The same things that you have to do to get Win11 run on older machines is the same thing you have to do to achieve dual-boot. Now, I would install Win first, on it's own physical drive, then Mint on it's own physical drive, with the Mint drive as primary and dual boot out of grub in the final config.... Never got win11 to see the Linux drive.

I achieved that with win11 too, but the FUD at the time was that win11 will not accept updates in that state - I assumed that to be FUD, because it was updating fine running bandit on old processors. But the FUD was eternal (undenied) and I got itchy about that... And I hated living in Win11, so I eventually went back to Win10. I am still not sure if setting up a bandit win11 causes actual updating and security issues.

Full disclaimer: This is a Windows house btw. I love Linux - Particularly BSD/Ubuntu/Mint, but I have to stay up to date on the tech side, and that means Windows and MS Office I currently have no standing Linux installations, and only my two test bench boxes dual-boot... Both of those are Win10/Mint.

[DB]

Windows 10 has fairly good WSL support for Linux running as a virtual machine in Windows. We use it with Ubuntu for ARM code development.

[roamer_1]

I very much like True Launch Bar if it is still around. Can organize files/folders/apps very cleanly with minimal clicks to get there.

Stardock's 'Start 11' - I got in with Stardock over the start bar in early win8/win10 days, and really all the way back in XP. There's a nominal fee... I don't remember... maybe five bucks...

But it will give you a truer win10 start feel than you can get out of Win11, even with all the jiggery and ExperiencePatcher applied.

The problem I run into is that I either have to commit to Win11/Stardock or stay in Win10, because all my start bar hacks in win10 don't translate. If I set up a new machine for myself in win10, I can literally set up the desktop and start panels in a couple clicks, importing my exact style and all the positioning out of a backed up config. In Stardock, or by hand, it's hours.

It's a thing, because I use the crap out of the Start panels... I have derived my ultimate efficiency in that, and I am always adverse to change. I do not want to adapt to Win11.

[roamer_1]

Windows 10 has fairly good WSL support for Linux running as a virtual machine in Windows. We use it with Ubuntu for ARM code development.

TRUE. I am NOOB in VM. Messed with it some with VirtualBox... A very little bit with VMWare... I never really caught the magic, other than it was handy in Dev. My main gig is messin with hard files and real configuration, often hacking hard drives by hand to make them go again... All of that kinda requires a pretty clean machine running from BIOS because of the constant changes. I sling drives in and out like a mad man.

I keep threatening to wake up my Dev. My toybox is getting really old again. I swore I would never rewrite, but here I am again. The last time, that took a long year. If I finally have to, well I guess my dev box will be VM capable.

[DB]

TRUE. I am NOOB in VM. Messed with it some with VirtualBox... A very little bit with VMWare... I never really caught the magic, other than it was handy in Dev. My main gig is messin with hard files and real configuration, often hacking hard drives by hand to make them go again... All of that kinda requires a pretty clean machine running from BIOS because of the constant changes. I sling drives in and out like a mad man.

I keep threatening to wake up my Dev. My toybox is getting really old again. I swore I would never rewrite, but here I am again. The last time, that took a long year. If I finally have to, well I guess my dev box will be VM capable.

WSL is part of Windows environment (does take an install) so you don't need VMWare or the like.

[Kamaji]

I don't remember, and any info I might provide would certainly be stale.

IIRC, The same things that you have to do to get Win11 run on older machines is the same thing you have to do to achieve dual-boot. Now, I would install Win first, on it's own physical drive, then Mint on it's own physical drive, with the Mint drive as primary and dual boot out of grub in the final config.... Never got win11 to see the Linux drive.

I achieved that with win11 too, but the FUD at the time was that win11 will not accept updates in that state - I assumed that to be FUD, because it was updating fine running bandit on old processors. But the FUD was eternal (undenied) and I got itchy about that... And I hated living in Win11, so I eventually went back to Win10. I am still not sure if setting up a bandit win11 causes actual updating and security issues.

Full disclaimer: This is a Windows house btw. I love Linux - Particularly BSD/Ubuntu/Mint, but I have to stay up to date on the tech side, and that means Windows and MS Office I currently have no standing Linux installations, and only my two test bench boxes dual-boot... Both of those are Win10/Mint.

I have a really old (bought in 2016, when it was low-end, still running a pentium 2-core cpu) 14" box that dual booted Win10 and Linux Mint.  I haven't run the Windows 10 installation for several years now.

The thing finally got too slow, even on Mint, for my tastes, so I just bought an open-box Lenovo Slim Pro 7 running AMD with a discrete NVidia graphics card and 16GB ram.  Only fly in the ointment is it came with Win11.

I'm running it on Win11 right now just so that I can say that I gave Win11 a shake - and I may end up having to know how to use it if/when my firm upgrades its systems to Win11 systems - but I intend to make it a dual boot system with Linux (probably Mint again) on its own separate ssd this time - just picked up a 1TB ssd for $70 - I can still remember when a 1GB hdd was heavy money.

[roamer_1]

WSL is part of Windows environment (does take an install) so you don't need VMWare or the like.

I know... But the same will apply.